Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The poem is written in the third person, with an omniscient narrator.
Form and Meter
The poem consists of 10 stanzas with 4 lines each and has a regular rhyme scheme of ABAB.
Metaphors and Similes
Metaphors:
l. 1: "the waving hair of some well-filled oaten beard"
the growing crops
l. 3/4: "a delicious tear dropped thee from heaven"
rain
l. 14: "Ceres and Baccus bid good night"
summer ends
l. 15: "sharp, frosty fingers"
ice and coldness in winter
l. 22: "A genuine summer"
warmth
Similies:
l. 37: "thus richer than untempted kings"
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliterations:
l. 11: "mak'st merry men"
l. 15: "frosty fingers"
l. 16: "scythes spared"
l. 23: "frozen fate"
Irony
There are no instances of irony in the poem.
Genre
The poem is an allegory.
Setting
The poem is set in nature, the grasshopper's habitat. The poems spans the time period from summer until winter.
Tone
The tone of the poem is celebratory (of the grasshopper) at first and then become encouraging.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist of the first part of the poem is the titular grasshopper. From the sixth stanza onwards, the protagonists are the speaker and his friends. While there is no explicit antagonist, winter/coldness or, on an allegorical level, bad situations can be considered the antagonist.
Major Conflict
The major conflict in the poem is between the grasshopper (as an allegory for the speaker, his friends and potentially everyone) and the winter (as an allegory for bad times).
Climax
The climax of the poem happens in the sixth stanza, when the speaker switches from the allegory of the grasshopper and begins to address his friends (and the reader).
Foreshadowing
There are no instances of foreshadowing in the poem.
Understatement
There are no instances of understatement in the poem.
Allusions
l. 14: "Ceres and Baccus"
l. 33: "clear Hesper"
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Synecdoche:
l. 10: "his beams"
sunlight
Metonymy:
l. 22: "in each other's breast"
in each other
Personification
l. 26-28: "the North Wind" is personified as a he with wings
l. 29-32: "Dropping December" is personified as a crowned he, that reigns during the cold time.
Hyperbole
l. 3: "drunk every night"
l. 5: "The joys of earth and air are thine entire"
l. 25: "Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally"
Onomatopoeia
There are no instances of onomatopoeia in the poem.
